Daily Newsletter, Sunday, 1/15/2017

Table of Contents

Leaps Trader Commentary

Event Risk Rising

by Jim Brown

Another week, another failure to break 20,000.
I would be very surprised if the Dow broke 20K this week as well. With the rising headlines about the event risk surrounding the inauguration, the market should not be especially bullish. What would be the point of buying a top in the market ahead of what ISIS is calling "Bloody Friday?" They are calling on every follower to be creative in their methods of attack but try to inflict as much damage as possible.

The 35,000 person security force plus 7,500 national guard members have been running drills to combat and react to every conceivable threat from truck crashes to car bombs to drones carrying explosives or biotech weapons. I may just be really paranoid but I can think of a lot of places I would rather be than jammed in with a million other viewers into the biggest terrorist bull's-eye of the year in 40 degree weather. I will have a much better seat in front of my big screen TV at a comfortable 70 degrees.

The market has not seemed to care that the event is approaching. The Nasdaq continues to set new highs and the Dow continues to trade sideways. The S&P is also in a sideways pattern but the recent candles are clustered at resistance suggesting it wants to break out. The A/D line is rising and were it not for the event risk I would be buying index calls at the current level.

The Dow pattern is not negative but there is no excitement. The A/D line is declining thanks to nearly one-third of the Dow components being downgraded last week. Despite that, the index just keeps moving sideways. Dips are bought and rallies are sold. The Dow is just passing time until a headline impacts the market. There are five Dow components reporting earnings this week. Goldman Sachs on Wednesday and IBM on Thursday will be the big movers.

The Nasdaq closed at a new high and has been up on 8 of the last 9 days. This run should be about over as some highly volatile tech stocks begin to report. Netflix is Wednesday after the close. Disappointments from the big names can turn into a wet blanket for the rally. The index is up more than 200 points in the last 9 days. It is time for a rest.

The Russell 2000 looks like the Dow with a narrow range and no direction. However, the Russell candles are clustered near support rather than resistance and the opposite of the S&P. The A/D line on the Russell is also at a six-week low so there is some internal weakness.

The earnings calendar is weighted to Wed/Thr and there are some big names. That will give traders something to do before they close up shop on Friday morning. Volume Friday should be very low with all eyes glued to the inauguration.

The most important economic reports are the Fed Beige Book on Wednesday and the Philly Fed Manufacturing Survey on Thursday. Unless there are significant deviations from the expectations, they will be ignored.

In reality there will probably be too much security surrounding the event and terrorists are probably going to pass. Even if they were willing to die for their cause, they would rather go out with a bang in a crowd of people rather than stopped at a security checkpoint. At least that would be my thought process. There will be a lot of events in the future with little or no security that could be softer targets. The inauguration will be a hard target but not an impossible target.

Regardless of whether you are worried about a disaster or not, I seriously doubt it will impact your financial future by waiting until next Monday to enter the market. It could however, cause a serious blow to your account if a 9/11 type of mass casualty attack appeared. The case for waiting until Monday is stronger than the case for plunging into new positions just because the market is open.

The S&P futures are down -4 on Sunday evening on a decline in the Asian markets and expectations for a drop in the European markets after the pound crashed on comments the UK is planning to make a hard break from the EU.

The End of Year Subscription Special will close at midnight on Monday. That will give all the remaining procrastinators plenty of time to get their tax-deductible subscription for 2017.

Automatic Data Processing, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides business process outsourcing services worldwide. The company operates through two segments, Employer Services and Professional Employer Organization (PEO) Services. The Employer Services segment offers a range of business outsourcing and technology-enabled human capital management (HCM) solutions, including payroll services, benefits administration services, talent management, human resources management solutions, time and attendance management solutions, insurance services, retirement services, and tax and compliance solutions. This segment's integrated HCM solutions include RUN Powered by ADP, ADP Workforce Now, ADP Vantage HCM, and ADP GlobalView, which assist employers of all sizes in all stages of the employment cycle from recruitment to retirement; and ADP SmartCompliance and ADP Health Compliance. The PEO Services segment provides a human resources (HR) outsourcing solution through a co-employment model to small and mid-sized businesses. This segment offers ADP TotalSource that provides various HR management services and employee benefits functions, such as HR administration, employee benefits, and employer liability management into a single-source solution. Company description from FinViz.com.

Earnings for the last quarter rose 9.5% to $368.7 million on a 7.5% rise in revenue. For 2017, ADP is guiding for 7% to 8% revenue growth and 15% to 17% earnings growth. Considering their five year average growth is 3.38% for revenue and 5.22% for earnings, that is very strong guidance. At the end of last quarter, ADP had 2.8 billion in cash. In the last quarter cash flow from operations rose 202% to $330 million.

ADP is rapidly expanding their Total Service product where they provide comprehensive outsourcing solutions where workers are co-employed by ADP and its clients. Revenue in that division rose 16% to $3 billion in sales with 12% earnings.

Earnings February 1st.

We are right at the start of the earnings cycle. Our only option is to pick a lesser quality stock that has already reported or pick a good stock that should beat earnings and then hold through the volatility that normally follows.

ADP shares closed 3 cents below a new high on Friday and are poised to start a new leg higher. With the focus on job creation in 2017, ADP should find willing investors on the expectations for future growth.

Buy Jan 2018 $110 call, currently $5.30, initial stop loss $99.75.

Play Updates

Tech Stocks Flying

by Jim Brown

The big cap techs extended their gains and we have no complaints. Facebook moved closer to its prior high and Nvidia held its current level with no further declines. Everything else was as flat as the market. The five-week sideways move is causing grief as premiums decline with the random volatility. This should be an interesting week with only three trading days until the inauguration.

In theory, investing in LEAPS is a long-term proposition where we hold over earnings in anticipation of a long-term gain. LEAPS should be exited in the normal November rally.

Original Play Recommendations (Alpha by Symbol)

The iPhone 8 leaks continue and now sites are saying the phone will come with wireless charging. You just place it within 36 inches of the charger and it charges automatically with no connections. There have been more leaks about the OLED screen on the larger model and suggesting there will be no edges on the phone. The screen wraps around the edge. On the downside it is rumored to be plastic instead of glass. Glass breaks, plastic scratches. The phone will keep working but the screen will accumulate scratches if you are not careful. I thought that was what screen protectors were for? Nomura said based on the leaks and the massive installed base they are predicting sales of 86 million phones in Q4 compared to the peak of 74.7 million in 4Q15.

On a negative note, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a class action suit claiming Apple is a monopoly because iPhone apps can only be sold through the Apple App Store and Apple receives a 30% commission. Apple claims it just operates a "shopping mall" for apps rather than an actual store.

Original Trade Description: January 8th

Apple Inc. designs, manufactures, and markets mobile communication and media devices, personal computers, and portable digital music players to consumers, small and mid-sized businesses, and education, enterprise, and government customers worldwide. The company also sells related software, services, accessories, networking solutions, and third-party digital content and applications. It offers iPhone, a line of smartphones; iPad, a line of multi-purpose tablets; and Mac, a line of desktop and portable personal computers. In addition, it offers Apple TV that connects to consumers' TV and enables them to access digital content directly for streaming high definition video, playing music and games, and viewing photos; Apple Watch, a personal electronic device; and iPod, a line of portable digital music and media players. Further, the company sells Apple-branded and third-party Mac-compatible, and iOS-compatible accessories, such as headphones, displays, storage devices, Beats products, and other connectivity and computing products and supplies. Additionally, it offers iCloud, a cloud service; AppleCare that offers support options for its customers; and Apple Pay, a mobile payment service. The company sells and delivers digital content and applications through the iTunes Store, App Store, Mac App Store, TV App Store, iBooks Store, and Apple Music. Company description from FinViz.com.

I am not going to spend a lot of time and space explaining this play because everyone should be aware of their recent problems. iPhone sales slowed and earnings dropped. The company took a hit when they removed the earphone jack from the iPhone 7 and then could not ship the AirPods because of technical problems. The new MacBook Pro was not well received and Consumer Reports failed to give it their seal of approval. That was a first for Apple.

Sales fell -4% to $215.6 billion, well below their target of $223.6 billion. Operating income declined -0.5%. Net sales were down -7.7% and earnings were down -15.7% from 2015 levels.

Recently, Nikkei reported Apple suppliers had been told to reduce production of components for the iPhone 7 by another 10% in Q1. The stock barely wavered on the news. I believe this is due to the rising excitement over the 10th anniversary iPhone due out this fall.

There have been numerous product leaks suggesting they will have three sizes and the largest size will have an OLED screen. The internal feature leaks have been very few but CEO Tim Cook said they were going to introduce some features that you will wonder how you got along without them. Time will tell.

There are also numerous rumors about major upgrades to other devices and some analysts are talking about record revenues in the coming year.

Since this is the tenth anniversary of the iPhone, there is a very good chance it will be chock full of new features.

Apple is also rumored to be building a manufacturing facility in India to be run by one of their prior suppliers. Phone production could begin as soon as April. That would give them a big opportunity to sell new phones into India and that is a huge market opportunity similar to China in 2010.

Because of the calendar, anything we add over the next couple weeks is going to be earnings challenged. Apple has earnings on Jan 24th. Expectations are low but Apple activated more devices during the holiday week than any other vendor so I am not expecting a big miss. It is still a risk but based on the chart, nobody else seems to be worried.

The $120 level is going to be resistance but a breakthrough could trigger significant short covering and price chasing. The last update to price targets was Piper Jaffray to $155 with an overweight weighting.

Position 1/9/17:

Long Jan 2018 $125 call @ $7.85. No initial stop loss until after any earnings volatility.

No specific news. OPEC headlines continue to cause volatility in oil prices and crude declined -$3.50 early in the week. Shares of the producers declined with crude.

Original Trade Description: October 2nd

Apache Corporation, an independent energy company, explores, develops, and produces natural gas, crude oil, and natural gas liquids. It operates onshore and offshore assets primarily in the Permian Basin, the Anadarko basin in western Oklahoma, the Texas Panhandle, and Gulf Coast areas of the United States, as well as in Western Canada and Gulf of Mexico. The company also operates assets in Egypt and the United Kingdom in the North Sea. As of December 31, 2015, it had total estimated proved reserves of 794 million barrels of crude oil, 198 million barrels of natural gas liquids, and 3.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Apache Corporation was founded in 1954 and is based in Houston, Texas. Company description from FinViz.com.

While that company description was valid six months ago the picture has changed for Apache. In early September Apache announced a monster discovery in Texas that could contain 75 Tcf of "rich" gas and 3 billion barrels of oil. The "Alpine High" as they are calling it, "was" a primarily wet gas play decades ago and companies overlooked it while they were searching for "dry" gas. The Alpine High play is in Reeves County of the Southern Delaware basin. Apache drilled some test wells and silently acquired nearly all the acreage in the entire play for an average cost of $1,300 per acre. This compares to prices recently paid in the Permian of $9,000 to $42,000 an acre. After Apache acquired nearly all the available acreage, they drilled 19 wells to prove out the reserves. Previously oil industry experts thought the area to be unfit for fracking because of an abundance of clay. Therefore, nobody was interested in this remote corner of the Delaware Basin inside the Permian. Apache said the amount of clay was significantly less than previously thought.

Compare the size of the discovery with the proved reserves in the company description. This one discovery is several times the size of the entire company six months ago.

Apache said it was raising capex by $200 million to $2 billion to reflect their anticipated activity in this area. They are going to allocate 25% of their capex budget to this discovery. Well costs are $4-$6 million for 4,100 foot laterals. They are going to start development with a 3-5 rig program and they have an estimated 3,000 drilling locations in the Woodford and Barnett formations alone. The only drawback to the position is the lack of infrastructure, which Apache will have to build out along with its wells. The company will not be able to sell production until the second half of 2017 when they anticipate the first level if infrastructure will be completed. Volume production will not begin until 2018.

The Alpine High has 4,000 to 5,000 feet of stacked pay in up to five distinct formations including the Bone springs, Wolfcamp, Pennsylvanian, Barnett and Woodford.

Apache is going to be getting a lot of attention over the next several months as portfolio managers reevaluate them as a potential investment. By more than tripling the company's reserves in one discovery the company has a lot of profitable work ahead for the next decade.

They were very smart to keep the discovery quiet until they had locked nearly every single acre in the entire discovery for very low prices.

Earnings Feb 2nd.

I have been waiting for the initial stock surge on the news of the discovery to fade to give us a better entry point. However, it never came and now with the OPEC production cut headlines we may never see the stock back below $60. I would rather buy a stock that is rising than wait forever for a dip that never comes.

I am not going to spread this LEAP because shares could run to $100 if the OPEC production cut actually occurs. We can spread out to exit the play on the backend.

Position 10/3/16:

Long 2018 $70 call @ $7.70, no initial stop loss.

You could sell a put to offset the call premium because I seriously doubt this stock is going significantly lower unless oil prices implode.

BMY and the rest of the drug stocks crashed on Wednesday after Trump repeated a comment about bringing down drug prices and forcing companies to compete by price to sell drugs to the government healthcare programs and possibly face import taxes. Shares fell $4 on the worries. I raised the stop loss on BMY just in case the sector continues to decline. The odds are good this topic will continue to appear and every comment could push the stocks lower.

Original Trade Description: August 8th.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company discovers, develops, licenses, manufactures, markets, distributes, and sells biopharmaceutical products worldwide. It offers chemically-synthesized drugs or small molecule, and biologic in various therapeutic areas, including virology comprising human immunodeficiency virus infection (HIV); oncology; immunoscience; cardiovascular; and neuroscience. Its products include Baraclude for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B virus infection; Daklinza and Sunvepra for the treatment of hepatitis C virus infection; Reyataz and Sustiva for the treatment of HIV; Empliciti, a humanized monoclonal antibody for the treatment of multiple myeloma; Erbitux, an IgG1 monoclonal antibody that targets and blocks the epidermal growth factor receptor; Opdivo, a fully human monoclonal antibody for non-small cell lung cancer, renal cell cancer, and melanoma; Sprycel, a multi-targeted tyrosine kinase inhibitor for the treatment of adults with Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia; Yervoy, a monoclonal antibody for the treatment of patients with metastatic melanoma; Abilify, an antipsychotic agent for adult patients with schizophrenia, bipolar mania disorder, and major depressive disorder; Orencia to treat rheumatoid arthritis; and Eliquis, an oral factor Xa inhibitor targeted at stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation, and the prevention and treatment of venous thromboembolic disorders. Its products pipeline includes Beclabuvir, a non-nucleoside NS5B inhibitor that is in regulatory review for the treatment of HCV; BMS-663068, an investigational compound that is being studied in HIV-1; and Prostvac, a Phase III prostate-specific antigen to treat asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer.

BMY is NOT a one-drug company. On August 5th, the stock fell from $75 to $62 on news a clinical trial on Opdivo for lung cancer without chemotherapy had ended without the desired results. More than $20 billion in market cap was erased from the stock because of one trial on a drug that is already successful in lung cancer with chemotherapy and in treating renal cell cancer.

This was not a case where all the patients in the trial died. It was simply a trial that did not work. Specifically this particular trial was hoping to prove the drug would be successful in patients with more than 5% of the PD-L1 protein in the tumors and had not received chemotherapy. This is a very broad trial. They hoped to be able to avoid the expensive chemotherapy process and the very painful side effects. It did not work in that application BUT it has already been approved for use with chemotherapy. The competitor drug from Merck, Keytruda, was tested in a smaller subset of patients with more than 50% of the PD-L1 protein. If BMY had copied that trial for Opdivo, the drug may have worked.

Bristol-Myers has a very strong portfolio of cancer drugs, HIV drugs, etc. Revenue is NOT going to change because the drug had never been prescribed for this specific patient demographic. Nothing changed financially for BMY. They had hoped a successful test would have added billions to annual revenue several years into the future but that was just wishful thinking.

There is an existing Phase 3 trial with Opdivo in conjunction with the drug Yervoy for PF-L1 positive patients. If that trial is successful, the Checkmate-026 trial will be immediately forgotten.

Update 10/30/16: BMY reported earnings of 77 cents compared to estimates for 65 cents. Revenue of $4.92 billion beat estimates for $4.75 billion. They guided for full year earnings of $2.80-$2.90, up from the prior forecast of $2.55-$2.65. For 2017 they guided for $2.85-$3.05 per share. The CEO was very upbeat about the BMY portfolio and pipeline and shares spiked $4 on the news. This should have finally killed the Opdivo headlines.
BMY is a good company. There is no material reason for a $20 billion market cap haircut. I have change the recommendation to buy a dip to strong support at $50. The decline is continuing and any further market weakness could give us a great entry point.

Facebook had another good week as analyst upgraded the shares. Raymond James raised their price target to $160 and rating to strong buy.

Over the weekend Facebook said it had taken steps to reduce fake news. German based Correctiv has signed the U.S. Poynter International Fact-Checking Code of Principles (Rules Here) and Facebook is going to require other partners to do the same. The German website will begin screening news within a few weeks.

Original Trade Description: November 13th.

Facebook disappointed on guidance when they reported earnings for Q3. Earnings were $1.09 compared to estimates for 92 cents. Revenue was $7.01 billion compared to $6.92 billion. That was a 56% increase from the year ago quarter. Monthly active users rose to 1.79 billion and beat expectations for 1.76 billion. That was a gain of 80 million users. Daily active users rose to 1.18 billion and beat estimates for 1.16 billion. More than 1 billion daily users are mobile users. That accounted for $5.7 billion in revenue or 84% of its total ad revenue compared to 78% in the year ago period.

The problem came from the guidance. The CFO said revenue growth rates will decline in coming quarters. The reason is the number of ads already running called the "ad load." Facebook has run out of places to display ads because they are all booked. The company also said 2017 would be an "aggressive investment year" as they grow capex "substantially" and ramp up hiring.

Facebook still makes a lot of money and they still have a lot of assets to monetize. They have barely begun to monetize Instagram and WhatsApp. Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion four years ago and Forbes said it was worth $25 to $50 billion today. Instagram has added 100 million users in the first nine months of 2016 to reach 400 million. They are targeting one billion. Instagram revenue is expected to triple in 2016 to $1.5 billion and then triple again to $5 billion by 2018 according to eMarketer.

Instagram only has 350 employees compared to the 14,500 Facebook employees. Instagram users average 21 minutes a day and upload more than 95 million photos and videos. There is gold in those posts and Facebook is working on finding more ways to monetize the app.

Facebook may expect revenue "growth" to slow but that is different from "decline." It is still a great business and there will be another explosion of growth as Instagram and WhatsApp hit their prime.

Shares fell to the 200-day average on Thursday and that has been support since mid 2013. I believe buyers will take advantage of the sharp decline in order to establish new positions. Facebook will rebound and it will set new highs. Those highs may not be in the near future but that does not mean we will not see a short term rebound.

Earnings Feb 1st.

The drop in price after earnings plus the decline in the Nasdaq big caps last week helped to reduce the premiums but they are still expensive and require a spread position to receive maximum benefit at the lowest cost.

GE shares are fading despite being the largest industrial company and should thrive under a Trump administration. GE has lost its momentum and I am recommending we close it.

Original Trade Description: November 27th.

General Electric Company (GE) operates as an infrastructure and financial services company worldwide. The company's Power segment offers gas and steam power systems; maintenance, service, and upgrade solutions; distributed power gas engines; water treatment, wastewater treatment, and process system solutions; and nuclear reactors, fuels, and support services. Its Renewable Energy segment provides wind turbine platforms, and hardware and software; offshore wind turbines; and solutions, products, and services to hydropower industry. The company's Oil and Gas segment provides turbomachinery solutions; surface and subsea drilling and production systems, and equipment for floating production platforms; measurement and control products; and compressors, pumps, valves, and natural gas solutions. Its Energy Management segment offers industrial and grid solutions; and power conversion systems. The company's Aviation segment designs and produces commercial and military aircraft engines, integrated digital components, electric power, and mechanical aircraft systems; and provides aftermarket services. Its Healthcare segment offers diagnostic imaging and clinical systems; products and services for drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing, and cellular technologies; and healthcare information technology products. The company's Transportation segment provides freight and passenger locomotives, parts, wreck repair, software-enabled solutions, mining equipment and services, marine diesel engines, and stationary power diesel engines and motors, as well as overhaul, repair, and upgrade services. Its Appliances & Lighting segment sells and services home appliances; and manufactures, sources, and sells lighting solutions. The company's Capital segment offers commercial lending and leasing, factoring, energy financial, and aircraft financing and leasing services. Company description from FinViz.com.

GE is a very boring company. They are huge, they move slowly and there is no excitement in their earnings or forecasts. Because they are so boring a straight LEAP call is only $1.85 and the risk from a future bout of profit taking is minimal.

GE is doing all the right things. They are spinning off their energy division to merge with Baker Hughes and create the second largest services company in the oilfield. They sold off their financial services divisions to escape the government's control as a systemically important financial institution (SIFI).

In their recent earnings, they had some delivery problems with some giant wind turbines that shifted revenue into Q4. They continued to suffer from the depleted energy sector and that prompted the spinoff of that division.

They pay a 3% dividend and the company is always growing. Boring.

In this market, with the potential for profit taking over the next couple of months we need some more boring companies in the portfolio. Just don't expect to see a lot of news on GE in the weekly updates.

Update 12/18/16: GE is expected to reports earnings of $1.69 in 2017 and $2 in 2018. The CEO said the company was going to divest its $3 billion industrial solutions business and $1 billion water business by mid 2017. The company expects net proceeds of $4 billion. They are also planning to up their production of 3D printed parts to more than 500 parts in 2017, up from the last guidance of 15 parts, and cut manufacturing costs by $3 billion. The company is expecting to return $20 billion to investors in 2017.

Honeywell International Inc. operates as a diversified technology and manufacturing company worldwide. Its Aerospace segment offers aircraft engines, integrated avionics, systems and service solutions, and related products and services for aircraft manufacturers and operators, airlines, military services, and defense and space contractors, as well as spare parts, and repair and maintenance services for the aftermarket. This segment also provides auxiliary power units; propulsion engines; environmental control, connectivity, electric power, flight safety, communication, navigation, radar, surveillance, and thermal systems; engine controls; aircraft lighting products, as well as wheels and brakes; advanced systems and instruments; and turbochargers, as well as management, technical, logistics, repair, and overhaul services to original equipment manufacturers in the air transport, regional, business, and general aviation aircraft; and automotive and truck manufacturers. The company's Home and Building Technologies segment offers environmental and energy, security and fire, and building solutions. Its Safety and Productivity Solutions segment provides sensing and productivity Solutions, and industrial safety products. Its Performance Materials and Technologies segment provides catalysts and adsorbents; equipment and consulting services for the petroleum refining, gas processing, petrochemical, and other industries; and automation control, instrumentation, software, and services for the oil and gas, refining, pulp and paper, industrial power generation, chemicals and petrochemicals, biofuels, life sciences, metals, minerals, and mining industries. It also offers fluorocarbons, hydrofluoroolefins, caprolactam, resins, ammonium sulfate fertilizers, phenol, specialty films, waxes, additives, fibers, research chemicals and intermediates, and electronic materials and chemicals. Company description from FinViz.com.

On Oct 7th, Honeywell shares collapsed from $116 to $105 after the CEO warned that profits would be below guidance and they lowered guidance for the rest of 2016. The CFO said on the conference call, "In the third quarter, we continued to see slow growth across much of our portfolio." Declines in the emerging markets and the oil industry have crimped demand for business aircraft and helicopters, hurting Honeywell's unit that sells jet engines, cockpit controls and aerospace parts.

The company preannounced earnings of $1.60 compared to prior guidance of $1.67-$1.72. For the full year they lowered their forecast by 6 cents to $6.64 per share. The company is in the middle of a reorganization process that will increase profits in the future.

After the stock was crushed by the warning, the CEO appeared on CNBC and said the warning was not received in the way he thought it would be. "I gave credit for people understanding what our long-term profile was. I was wrong. I could have done a significantly better job of communicating this story. We tried to do it in the context of 2017 is going to be good, but it seemed to get totally lost" in the headlines.

The CEO went on to explain that the hiccup in Q3 was minor in the bigger picture given the businesses they just sold in September and the organizational restructuring currently in progress. They only cut full year earnings by 6 cents and will still produce earnings of $6.64 or better. Also the changes in progress will allow Honeywell to grow earnings by 10% or more in 2017. That adds another 66 cents or more to an already robust earnings picture.

He said he was "astounded by the reaction" to the minor cut in earnings. He went on to say that while the business jet business was lagging, the aerospace business was still doing well and should not have been lumped into the warning. He also said the energy business had bottomed in Q3 and would be improving in Q4.

Basically the CEO took a giant step by going on CNBC and saying he was wrong in how the lowered earnings estimates were portrayed and he did a good job of explaining that the weakness was much narrower than presented and the outlook for 2017 was outstanding.

On Oct 21st, Honeywell (HON) reported earnings of $1.67 compared to estimates for $1.60. Revenue of $9.80 billion beat estimates for $9.78 billion. The company said it was well positioned for double-digit earnings growth in Q4 and that would push them to 8-9% earnings growth for the full year. For Q4 they guided for $1.74-$1.78 in earnings and analysts were expecting $1.80. They guided for the full year to earnings of $6.60-$6.64 and revenue of $39.4 to $39.6 billion. Analysts were expecting $6.68 and $39.63 billion.

Shares rallied despite the lowered guidance because Honeywell had already warned two weeks earlier and shares were crushed. The company focused on being upbeat about 2017 saying they expect double-digit earnings because of the restructuring they accomplished in 2016. The company laid off 3,017 positions in Q3 as they separated the automation and control solutions business into two new reporting segments. They took a charge of $202 million on the restructuring and layoffs. Because of the big drop in early October, the risk should be reduced for Honeywell shares.

In this market, any company that can produce double-digit earnings in Q4 and give strong guidance for 2017 should find some buyers. I believe the worst is over for the shares and we should see a rebound back to the highs, possibly before year-end.

Position 10/24/16

Long Jan 2018 $115 call @ $6.25, see portfolio graphic for stop loss.

After HON rises some we can turn it into a spread and reduce the premium.

No specific news. Lots of headlines but nothing material. Shares moving sideways with the Dow.

Original Trade Description: October 9th.

Intel Corporation designs, manufactures, and sells integrated digital technology platforms worldwide. It operates through Client Computing Group, Data Center Group, Internet of Things Group, Software and Services, and All Other segments. The company's platforms are used in various computing applications comprising notebooks, 2 in 1 systems, desktops, servers, tablets, smartphones, wireless and wired connectivity products, wearables, retail devices, and manufacturing devices, as well as for retail, transportation, industrial, buildings, home use, and other market segments. It offers microprocessors that processes system data and controls other devices in the system; chipsets, which send data between the microprocessor and input, display, and storage devices, such as keyboard, mouse, monitor, hard drive or solid-state drive, and optical disc drives; and system-on-chip products that integrate its central processing units with other system components onto a single chip. The company also provides communication and connectivity offerings, such as baseband processors, radio frequency transceivers, and power management integrated circuits; and tablet, phone, and Internet of Things solutions, which include multimode 4G LTE modems, Bluetooth technology and GPS receivers, software solutions, and interoperability tests, as well as home gateway and set-top box components. In addition, it offers security solutions for computers, mobile devices, and networks, as well as software and services for technology integration; NAND flash memory products, which are used in solid-state drives; and custom foundry services, including custom silicon, packaging, and manufacturing test services. Company description from FinViz.com.

Yes, Intel. The father of modern computers, servers and everything chip related. They have a lot of competition today but Intel is still a chip behemoth. They rule the PC and server processor space with new developments faster than other chip makers can even conceive of them, with the exception of Nvidia, which is giving Intel a tough battle. There is enough market share for everyone so nobody is going to be squeezed out of the market.

I am not going to go into a lot of detail on Intel because everyone knows who they are and what they do. I believe this is the right time to play Intel because more than one company, including Intel, has said they underestimated PC demand over the last quarter.

The main reason behind the PC surge is Windows 10. The Window's Vista and Window's 8 problems have been forgotten because Microsoft went back to what worked and what customers wanted. Now that Windows 10 has been accepted by the mainstream consumer, the long awaited upgrade cycle is underway. That means tens of millions of PCs are being replaced with new models. Add in the millions of new tablets and servers and Intel should be doing well.

Their earnings are October 18th. I rarely suggest adding a new position only a week before earnings but the options are cheap and I expect Intel to beat the estimates and guide higher. I could be wrong but we have 14 months to be right.

Intel shares closed at a new 15-year high on Friday and just over $38. Intel is breaking out and shares could easily run to $50 over the next year. As a big cap tech with relatively little volatility, fund managers should be throwing money at the stock over the next three weeks.

Update 11/13/16: Intel announced a new chip technology and is releasing proof of concept chips while it scales up to produce them in mass 2-3 years from now. They figured out how to put a FPGA on the same chip as a Xeon processor. This eliminates the requirement to had separate chips on a single motherboard and eliminates all the bandwidth headaches of moving high-speed data between those two chips. Data transfer rates between the two processors on the same chip could start in the 50-100 gigabits per second range and increase to 2 terabits early next decade. This is going to be a game changer when it goes into production 2-3 years from now.

Update: 11/20/16: Intel held an analyst meeting and described a new chip that they will be testing in early 2017 and releasing to some test customers at the end of 2017 that is supposed to be very advanced. They claim their top of the line server chip can process a specific image recognition task in about 2,000 hours. The same task on a Nvidia GPU takes 33 hours. The new Nervana is said to be capable of performing the task in a fraction of that time. It will be more than a year before the refined chip will be available to the public. It is supposedly so fast that Intel was thinking about running it as a cloud service application. That is pretty strong talk for a chip that has not even been tested yet.

Update 12/11/16: Intel announced two deals with Amazon to expand the Alexa service. Intel is integrating the Alexa voice controls in to a smart speaker product and the company is expanding the Alexa voice controls into the Smart Home Hub. This means Intel will allow other developers to use its technology to build other Alexa powered devices. GE announced an Alexa lamp last week that replaces the Echo device.

No material decline for the week. Shares continue to hold just over $100 as a year's worth of gains are consolidated.

I am leaving the order to close the $90 call open because we never know when the market is going to suddenly crash. With all the events in January, it could happen at any time.

Previously: Our Nvidia strategy has not worked out too well. We had a $20 call spread using the 2018 $70/$90 calls. The idea was to allow the premium received from the $90 call reduce the cost in the $70 call. Nvidia reported blowout earnings that surprised everyone and the stock spiked $20 to $88 and caused the deep out of the money $90 call to explode in price. Obviously, a $15 premium for an ATM call will decline over time. Nvidia shares are likely to experience some post earnings depression and the premium imbalances will eventually fade. Temporarily, the accounting looks terrible but it will eventually correct. If we hold until expiration we are guaranteed a $20 profit on the position.

Original Trade Description: September 18th

NVIDIA Corporation operates as a visual computing company worldwide. It operates in two segments, GPU and Tegra Processor. The GPU segment offers processors, which include GeForce for PC gaming; Quadro for design professionals working in computer-aided design, video editing, special effects, and other creative applications; Tesla for deep learning, accelerated computing, and general purpose computing; and GRID for cloud-based streaming on gaming devices. The Tegra Processor segment provides processors that integrate a computer onto a single chip under the Tegra brand name; DRIVE automotive computers, which offer supercomputing capabilities; and tablet and portable devices for mobile gaming under the SHIELD name. The company's products are used in gaming, professional visualization, datacenter, and automotive markets. It sells its products primarily to original equipment manufacturers, original design manufacturers, system builders, motherboard manufacturers, add-in board manufacturers, and retailers/distributors.

Q1 earnings rose 46% to 33 cents and beat earnings by a penny. They hiked full year revenue guidance as well as the current quarter. Tor Q2 they raised the forecast to $1.35 billion that was above analyst estimates at $1.28 billion. Gaming revenue was up 17% to $687 million but all areas of effort saw significant gains. They recently released a new graphics card that is twice as fast and 40% cheaper than the card it is replacing.

Nvidia's Graphics Processing Units or GPUs have become more than just video chips. They have become supercomputing processors and can be packaged in large groups to parallel process monster datasets and computations that would have taken weeks with conventional chips. They are truly revolutionizing the processor industry.

The focus on Artificial Intelligence or AI, a lot of companies like Google and Amazon are turning to GPUs to handle the monster amounts of data they collect every day. Facebook already uses Nvidia M40 GPU accelerators to power its Big Sur machine learning computers. Those NVIDIA GPUs were specifically designes to train deep neural networks for enterprise data centers, and the company says they are 10-20 times faster than other network computers. Nvidia said their GPD powered machine learning computers can help train networks new things in just a few hours that would take days or weeks with less powerful systems.

The new P100 GPU is 12 times faster than the prior version and can provide more performance than "several hundred computer nodes" and up to eight P100s can be interconnected to provide previously unheard of computing power. The chips in the GPUs contain more than 15.3 billion transistors each and the largest chip ever built at 16 nanometer technology. That is twice as many as on Intel's biggest chips. The P100 delivers more than 10 teraflops of performance. One teraflop can process one trillion floating-point instructions per second and the P100 can do 10 teraflops or 10 trillion calculations per second.

The COSMOS weather forecasting application runs faster on the P100 than the 27 servers, running twin multicore processors each that were previously tasked with the project. Intel makes commodity processors for the millions of PCs and servers in the world. Nvidia is light years ahead of Intel in technology. Nvidia's data center revenue increased 63% in Q1.

Update 10/3/16: Nvidia announced a new chip code-named Xavier that is specifically designed for self driving cars. The chip has (8) 64-bit ARM cores, a 512-core graphics processor based on the new Volta graphics architecture, two video processors capable of handling 8K video and a specialized computer vision accelerator. The chip has more than seven billion transistors and more than twice the new Apple A9X processor. All of that capability is on one chip.

Q2 earnings were a blowout and shares rocketed to a new high. We closed the prior position at $63.11 and I am putting a $56 entry trigger of this Watch List recommendation. We may never get triggered but it we do it should be a winning position.

Chip stocks were mixed with the SMH still holding near the highs despite a Nasdaq breakout. The chip sector is fragmented and all the stocks are not moving in the same direction.

Original Trade Description: December 4th.

The investment seeks to replicate as closely as possible, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of the Market Vectors US Listed Semiconductor 25 Index (the "Semiconductor Index"). The fund normally invests at least 80% of its total assets in securities that comprise the fund's benchmark index. The Semiconductor Index is comprised of common stocks and depositary receipts of U.S. exchange-listed companies in the semiconductor sector. Such companies may include medium-capitalization companies and foreign companies that are listed on a U.S. exchange. Company description from FinViz.com.

The semiconductor sector has been in rally mode since July. The SMH hit a high post election at $71.83 but was crushed back to $67.50 last week in the Nasdaq crash. If the economy is actually going to accelerate as analysts believe, the chip sector will be a leader. Everything we do today has some kind of chip component from smartphones to refrigerators to automobiles. Everything we touch has a chip if it is even remotely electronic.

Chips were soft from the middle of 2015 until July 2016 as the economic struggled along at a roughly 1.25% growth rate. I believe they are poised to rally higher over the next year. The growth of the cloud with millions of servers added every year is just one area that is seeing new chip technology.

Because of the crash last week the LEAP prices have declined to reasonable levels unlike most individual stocks.

The January dip has failed to appear but we still have to get past the inauguration without a disaster. The potential for a decline still exists.

I considered putting a stop loss on the position at $229 but there is considerable market risk ahead of the inauguration. Despite the bullish improvement in the market, we could see a sharp decline at any time. The premium is currently $1 and I am willing to risk that dollar that we could still see a material decline.

The market is nearing a top. When and where, nobody knows for sure. However, there are calendar and headline events in our near future that could trigger a significant decline.

The market has posted a remarkable string of gains with the Dow making a new high close on 14 of the last 22 sessions. The S&P has rallied 171 points in 22 days or roughly +8.2%. The Russell 2000 has rallied 20.1% over the same period. Those would be good annual gains but to do it in 22 days has moved the market into very overextended status. And, it may become even more overextended before the bubble pops.

The market typically rises in the two weeks before Christmas and has a mixed record for the days after Christmas. The direction in the post holiday sessions normally depend on the market in the weeks before the holidays. If the market is up strongly, then traders begin to short the market in anticipation of a January decline. If the market was only slightly bullish then window dressing tends to lift the indexes in the post holiday sessions. Those trends are not what we are worried about today.

There are three basic problems. The first is Dow 20,000. The odds are good we will hit that milestone over the next ten days and that could be a very obvious sell the news event. Large round numbers tend to be psychological targets and they do not get much larger and rounder than 20,000. When the target is hit, quite a few traders may decide to take profits and shut down for the rest of the year. Dow 20K could be a bump in the road but probably not the biggest obstacle.

The second problem is the monster market gains in the post election honeymoon phase. Fund managers are putting every penny they can raise into the market in order to leverage as many gains as possible before the end of the year. They are competing with their peers and to keep their jobs and collect their bonuses. This suggests the rally could continue in some fashion until after Christmas. The problem for the next two weeks is the lack of cash. Analysts claim most funds have run out of cash because of their efforts to leverage the gains for the rest of December. That means the withdrawal cycle in January could result in a lot of selling in positions that have exploded higher over the last month.

While there is a lot of end of year retirement money hitting the funds they are investing every penny. Once January arrives and we are in a new tax year, there is no longer any reason to hold grossly overextended positions. Traders and portfolio managers will want to capture the gains and then invest the money for the next year before being forced to pay taxes. That makes January potentially rocky after a big year-end gain.

Dow - January 2016

Lastly, there is the January 20th inauguration and the associated event risk. With more than one million people attending and hundreds of thousands more lining the parade route, the potential for a terrorist attack is very high. I am sure quite a few investors will want to lock in profits and raise cash before that event risk.

So, there are multiple reasons why the market could decline over the next five weeks and very few reasons why it should continue making new highs.

I am recommending we protect ourselves from potential loss by hedging with some puts on the SPY. The ETF closed at $226.50 on Friday and futures are up strong on Sunday evening. We could see a continued rally this week but this rubber band is just about stretched to its limit.

This is not a LEAPS position. This is insurance. I am using the February puts. I am going to start with an entry trigger at $224.50 and then move the trigger and strike up if the market continues higher. The SPY has initial risk to $219-$220 and secondary risk to $216.

The put position on the SPY was triggered on the 28th when the ETF traded at $224.50. The initial support is $219 and we could see a retest of $215.

This is a potential long position on the SPY in case we do get that dip later in January. We want to buy a dip in anticipation of a rebound.

Original Trade Description: January 2nd.

The S&P ETF mimics the S&P-500 index on a 1:10 ratio.

Most analysts believe the market sill finish significantly higher in 2017. Some analysts expect the Dow to reach 24,000 or even 25,000 by the end of 2017. A 10% move would be 22,000 and 15% 23,000. Those targets are possible but 25,000 would be a real stretch.

Analysts are rapidly updating their 2017 S&P forecasts in light of the recent rally. These are the highest estimates on the street today.

If any of those targets come true, buying some January 2018 SPY calls on a dip could be a profitable trade. Unfortunately, they are expensive.

I changed the strike to $225 and expect the premium to be about $9 if $220 is hit. If we get filled, we will hold them all year and sell a short call against them late in the year to recover some of that premium.

With a SPY trade at $220

Buy Jan 2018 $225 call, estimated premium $9, no initial stop loss.

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Broken Record

by Jim Brown

I am still expecting that buying opportunity in January. The market was flat last week with the exception of the Nasdaq.
Anything is possible this week with the event risk surrounding the inauguration. Analysts are still predicting either a decline before or decline after the inauguration. I suggest we continue waiting until that event passes.